KUCHING: Some 280,000 people have visited the Kuching Festival Food Fair at Dewan Masyarakat in Padungan here in the first eight days of its opening.
This was disclosed by Kuching Festival Food Fair organising chairman, Councillor Goh Tze Hui at a press conference at Dewan Masyarakat here yesterday.
“We are expecting more people to come and we still have 16 days more to go,” he said.
According to Councillor Mohammad Taufik bin Abdul Ghani, chairman of the main organising committee of the Kuching Festival 2017, this year there are more tourists visiting the Kuching Festival Food Fair.
“In fact, when we had our Kuching International City Night on the second day, the Minister of Tourism said that next year he wants to help promote Kuching Festival oversea so that more people from overseas will come. So, it will become one of the tourism agendas,” he said.
Mohammad Taufik added that last year the number of visitors to the Kuching Festival Food Fair was 800,000 for the whole duration.
On complaint that MBKS’ rental of stalls and booths at the Kuching Festival Food Fair was very high, Muhammad Taufik said it was actually based on a free market where people are allowed to put up prices acceptable to the people and based on supply and demand.
“The council is merely providing the platform. There is nothing wrong in charging or allowing option for stall price to go up and it is only fair,” he said, adding that if customers and visitors continue to come that means they can afford it.
“The system gives good indication that they have the purchasing power,” he added.
Mohammad Taufik said Kuching Festival was not just about the Food fair but it was also about other activities.
“Sometime we tender the stalls and from there we get the money to organise the festival. We don’t spend even a single cent from the rate payers’ money,” he said. adding that the tender was very transparent.
He said more than half of the 316 stall operators only have to pay RM500 for the 24-day period.
“There is nowhere else a stall operator only has to pay RM500 for 24 days,” he said, pointing out that the rental was actually very minimal.
He said the rental for tradeshow booth this year was RM250 which is lower compared to RM300 last year because of low demand.
He added that those big companies spent more money for the renovation of their stalls, maybe ten times more than they pay for the rent because they are confident they can make more money.
He said the rental bid started with RM300,000 but was not taken so was lowered it to RM280,000 until it was finally settled for RM275,000 which included the beverage stalls.
“It is guided by the market price,” Mohammad Taufik said and stressed that the tender was very transparent.
